Denkai’s vet clinic, 217 1st St. in Eaton, offers low-cost services, including spaying and neutering, dental and vaccinations, for low-income pet owners. Hours are 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Go to http://www.denkaisanctuary.org/Veterinary_Services.html to download consent forms or for more information, or call (970) 454-3353.

During the first month, Dominic was underfoot and in the way. Stephany Haswell, vet tech at Denkai Community Veterinary Clinic, wondered if she was going to have to find him a home.

Dominic was just a puppy, so the staff gave him a little leeway. But they needed to give him something to do.

They found their answer when they watched Dominic cuddle with a dog coming out of surgery. He now has one of the most important jobs in the Eaton clinic.

Dominic is an 18-week-old pit bull. He came to Denkai, which rescues farm animals as well as domestic ones, after police found a pit bull with a litter of puppies in a Denver home during a raid.

Denver has a ban on pit bulls, and so the animal shelters in the area needed to move them fast. They came to Denkai.

Haswell offered to foster a couple puppies. She brought them to her Milliken home, which she shares with her husband, Corey, and their three kids, aged 8, 7 and 4. The first thing she told them all was "no."

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Dominic was adorable, with a gray coat the color of storm clouds and rainy blue eyes. But they didn't need more dogs. They already had three and they were big ones.

Yet it took time to find a family they could trust to adopt the pit bull pups. Many animal rescue workers contend pit bulls are a problem because of their owners, not the breed, and sure enough, the many people who called to inquire about the pit puppies would refuse home visits or hang up when Haswell asked about a background check.

By the time Haswell had sifted through the "riff-raff," as she called it, her neighbor adopted one of the pups, and her family was in love with Dominic.

So were her dogs. Normally they shunned the dogs she fostered, but Dominic fit in right away.

Still, Haswell brought Dominic to work because he could be a handful. He was haranguing the other three dogs to play, and she knew they needed a break during the day.

"And you can't put him in a kennel," Haswell said, "because he screams like a girl."

So Dominic bugged the workers at the clinic.

Then, one morning, they set a dog just out of surgery on Dominic's huge red pillow just outside the operating room.

Dominic immediately came over to cuddle. That was just his nature. He cuddled with everyone from Haswell's kids to the dogs to Haswell herself at night, when he slept on her head.

Haswell, though, remained a little skeptical. Dominic was cuddling with the new dog because he was cold, she thought.

She changed her mind later that day, when Dominic lay in the middle of a pile of dogs out of surgery and rested his head on their bodies when they cried.

The dog who cried the most got the most cuddle time from Dominic.

And she remembered the way Dominic rested his head on her neck when she had a headache.

Dominic would even cuddle with cats out of surgery, though they weren't as receptive as the dogs.

What's more, it made things easier on them. Dogs coming out of surgery could be wild, even aggressive, and bites were a little too common.

But when Dominic lay with them, they woke up calm, rested and happy.

Dominic now seems to understand his job. When a dog is under, Dominic waits at the foot of the door until clinic workers bring the dog out of surgery and set it on Dominic's pillow, and he immediately goes over to rest with them.

Dominic cries and paces if another dog is crying in the clinic. He even acts irritated when Haswell rubs a dog's body in an attempt to wake it up, as if Dominic's saying, "Hey, I got this."

"I've never, ever seen anything like this," said Floss Blackburn, who has seen a lot as the founder of Denkai. "He's got such a sweet heart."

Haswell's kids named him after Dom, the tough Vin Diesel character in the "Fast and the Furious" movie series.

But that doesn't seem to fit Dominic as well as the job description the clinic's assigned to him.

Dominic does indeed have a job now. He's the Denkai Recovery Specialist.

— Staff writer Dan England covers the outdoors, entertainment and general assignment stories for The Tribune. His column runs on Tuesday. If you have an idea for a column, call (970) 392-4418 or e-mail dengland@greeleytribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DanEngland.

More on Denkai

Denkai’s vet clinic, 217 1st St. in Eaton, offers low-cost services, including spaying and neutering, dental and vaccinations, for low-income pet owners. Hours are 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Go to http://www.denkaisanctuary.org/Veterinary_Services.html to download consent forms or for more information, or call (970) 454-3353.